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Citations

Giving Credit

When you use the words or original ideas of another person in your writing, you need to document, or give credit to, the sources of those words or ideas. If exact words from the original are used, quotation marks are necessary. If you paraphrase, or restate the idea in your own words, quotation marks are not required, but documentation of the source is still required.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Copying someone else's work or ideas and misrepresenting them as your own is called plagiarism. Committing plagiarism, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is a violation of academic integrity and can result in suspension from school. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to:

  • Take good notes and record important citation information (author, titles, dates, pages, etc.)
  • Avoid copying and pasting from the Web and other electronic resources
  • Use your own ideas and words
  • Give credit for copied, adapted, or paraphrased material using a proper citation style

ACS

The ACS style is a set of standards for writing documents relating to chemistry, including a standard method of citation in academic publications, developed by the American Chemical Society (ACS).

ASA

ASA style is a widely accepted format for writing university research papers in the field of sociology. Standards for ASA style are specified in the ASA Style Guide, which is published by the American Sociological Association, the main scholarly organization for academic sociologists in the United States. ASA style is closely related in appearance and function to APA (American Psychological Association) style.

APSA

The APSA Style Manual for Political Science provides guidelines for authors submitting to political science journals on submission policies, grammar, usage, and citation.The most recent, 2006 revision of the Style Manual for Political Science is based on the 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.